Chapter 10
Javi was trapped in one of those shitty sorts of mornings that reared its ugly head every now and again, a front-to-back, top-to-bottom, beginning-to-end shitty morning, and Rick's name lighting up his phone for the fourth time that hour wasn't helping to bring it any relief.
On the third ring, he snarled something not at all flowery in Spanish, snatched it up from his desk, and answered. He would've been perfectly content not to, to go on ignoring him until his patience tank was full, but he knew Rick as well as anyone, and that meant the less attention he paid, the more his phone would continue to ring.
"I don't know what the hell you were doing that day, but the rest of us learned the emergency number when we were, like, four. Write this down: 9-1-1."
The seconds of dead air on the other end were notable.
"Huh?" Rick coughed out eventually.
"Did you fall in a hole? Are you on fire?"
Again, a pause.
"Have you ever felt like you're drunk but you haven't actually had anything to drink? I'm experiencing it right now. I wonder if there's a name for it."
"There is," Javi barked. "It's called stop blowing up my damn phone. What do you want, Castle?"
"Well, first, hey. It's been a while. Miss me?"
Nearly two months had passed since they'd spoken, even longer since they'd hung out, just after Kate had come to the city for her-still-sole visit since moving down to D.C.
"We'll catch up another time," he sputtered when Javi offered him zero. Zero with a silent but ear-ringing roar. "I just wanted to let you guys know I planned a surprise trip to see Beckett this weekend, so if you could not say anything to her about it, I'd appreciate it. We haven't-"
"Are you serious right now, bro? Are we…is this conversation for real?" Javi jumped all over him, smothered whatever other nonsense he imagined was yet to come. "You hit up my business four times in an hour, while I'm knee-deep in bodies, to tell me not to tell Beckett about a thing I didn't have the first freakin' clue about in the first place? What the hell's the matter with you? Love is seriously frying your brain."
Rick thought it out a minute, which, obviously, wasn't something he did before he picked up his phone.
"Okay, yeah, Espo, you make a good point. I guess I just got too excited."
"That sounds like some personal shit. How about you keep that in your bedroom and out of my squad room. And my ears."
"Speaking of," Rick said between snickers, "how's it going with the new addition?"
Javi glanced up at Kate's vacant desk.
"Replacement's already gone. She transferred to the One-Seven a few weeks back. Butted heads with Gates one too many times. You know she won't put up with any BS. Look how you two were when you were around."
"Pfft, please, Gates totally smiled at me that one time. I felt the connection."
"Your brain really is fried."
The dead air returned but didn't stay long.
"Impossible to replace the irreplaceable," Rick added earnestly.
"You got that right. Your girl was the best, and I'm hanging up on you now. Enjoy the weekend. Don't call me about it."
xxxx
"Hold up," Lanie said, raising a hand in the air that Kate couldn't see. "Let me make sure I've got this right. You're telling me you're coming to New York again, and again I don't get to see you because you'd rather spend all your time while you're here doing the nasty with your man than hanging with your best girl."
Tucked away alone in the stairwell of her office building on an already much-needed break, Kate narrowed her eyes, considered her response. Or pretended to really, as it required no consideration at all.
"Yes?"
Lanie laughed a hearty laugh, plopped down on a stool beside her examination table. "Man, I still can't get over you two. You and Castle. Castle and you. After all this time and all the crazy you've been through, you're really doing the love thing. I told you it would all work itself out. Did I not say it would all work itself out?"
"Yes, you did say." Kate rolled her eyes, but in a lighthearted way. "You're not mad about the weekend? It's just been so long, Lanie, and I barely get any time away from this place. I promise I'll make it up to you. You can come down here and we'll do our own thing. You can meet the new plant I got. I named her Miranda," she said with a smile.
"Cute pun, law lady, but for her sake, I hope Miranda is plastic," Lanie teased. "And, no, of course I'm not mad. I mean, obviously I miss you and wish I could see you, but if Castle's managing to behave himself-which is some kind of a miracle, let's be real-and being half as patient as you say he is, he deserves a hot and heavy weekend. He really has no idea you're coming?"
Kate smiled again, pleased with herself.
"Nope. He thinks I have a stack of paperwork to catch up on, which is true, actually. I thought I was going to have to beg Jordan for the hours off today, but I just told her if I didn't get to New York to see him soon, he might just pop into the office one day unannounced. That did the trick. She remembers Castle very well."
"He is memorable," Lanie chuckled. "Clearly your bod thinks so. I always had a feeling about him."
"Okay, I'm not sure I want to hear about your…feeling, Lanie."
"Girl, I've always had two eyes and one"-she cleared her throat in place of the word-"just like you. That's all I needed." She zagged back to the bigger picture. "You need any help with the plan?"
Kate gripped the railing and pulled herself up, dusted off her pants.
"No, thanks. It was all so last minute I don't really have one. I'm just going to grab a cab to the loft from the airport when I land, maybe pick up some wine on the way, and then-"
"No, baby," Lanie cut in. "I want the details after, once they've been through the sexy machine."
"I'm hanging up on you now. Love you."
xxxx
"You know I'm a sucker for a sweet serving of romance, Richard, but are you sure all of this is a good idea?"
Rick exited the side door of his bedroom where Martha was loitering, dropped his travel duffle on the floor in the foyer, and sailed on toward the kitchen with her in tow.
"All of what exactly, Mother? You make it sound like I plotted some elaborate mission or something. I bought a plane ticket, that's all. I'm going to land at the airport, swing by Beckett's office to surprise her, and then we'll spend a quiet weekend at her place. She said she had a bunch of paperwork to take care of, so she can do that, and I'll do whatever. It's just going to be a chance for us to finally spend some time together."
He didn't catch it, but her face twisted with the mention of Kate's office. His time as an NYPD shadow was one thing, and it wasn't as though the mayor granted that access without some reservation, friend or not, but her D.C. gig was an entirely different ballgame, one where "swinging by" likely wasn't often a practice, or a welcomed one at that.
"A bit of motherly advice on this one, darling: a light step might be wise. Tiptoe, don't crash into the place with a tank." It was as tactful as she could think to put it. "You mentioned the first time you visited that Katherine preferred to keep you at arm's length from her job. I'm only suggesting-"
"Thank you, Mother," Rick interrupted with a tone. "I didn't ask for your advice or your suggestions, but I appreciate the input, as always."
"Sure you do," she deadpanned as he cracked a can of soda and chugged it, certain he didn't hear a word she said. "Well then, you're off and I'm off. Call and let me know that you've arrived safely, would you? Hopefully, Katherine lets you live, and it won't be the last time mother and son speak."
Rick shouted after her as she headed for the door.
"Even when you aren't onstage, Mother, such drama. I'll call you later."
Martha tossed him a wave without turning around, released a sigh when she stepped past his duffle on the floor.
xxxx
A few hours later, Rick's flight got him into Reagan National early, and though early was only a matter of minutes, the dash of luck had his already heightened spirits soaring.
In the backseat of the taxi he hitched into the city, he pulled out his phone and composed a text message to Kate. "I wish I was on my way to see you right now," it read. "I miss your face." The grin on his as he typed and sent it was proof that no one took greater amusement in him than he did in himself.
No response came back, and the reason for that wasn't the reason he assumed, of course. He couldn't know that she was, at that moment, in the process of a descent from 27,000 feet, set to touch down at JFK as he rode on toward the office that she wasn't in.
When he arrived, he slipped the taxi driver a crisp hundred as a tip, not because the man did anything special to earn it, but because it was just his luck that his passenger was walking on a cloud, and the grand thanks poured over Rick for it only served to cushion his step. He strolled through the main entrance of Kate's building and into the lobby like he owned the place.
Between him and the guard desk, a large, official looking seal was painted on the floor, which he contemplated pausing to photograph in all its coolness, but the rather intense examination he and his duffle earned from the man standing in uniform on its far side had him thinking better of it, so he kept moving.
"Can I help you, sir?" The man's voice was as solid as his neck, and there was nothing welcoming about it, despite that being its primary job. Business, all business, from the tip of his bald head to the harnessed weapon tucked into the belt at his hip, was what he was. "Do you have an appointment here today?"
It was the first time in years Rick wasn't able to simply flash a smile and cruise past a building's first line of defense to get to Kate, and he felt both energized and disheartened by it. It was an exciting new reality to have to adapt to, and, at the same time, things would never again be as they once were.
"Uh, hi, no, no appointment. I was actually hoping to surprise someone who works here. Well, not just someone, I mean I know this person and she knows me. She just doesn't know I'm in town right now." The guard continued to stare blankly at him, to shift his eyes to his bag every now and again. "It's just clothes, I promise," he half chuckled.
His audience didn't find it funny.
"What's the name, sir?"
Rick gave his own and then realized, corrected. "Sorry, you meant…it's Kate Beckett. Katherine Beckett."
Leaning over the keyboard on the desk, the man typed then picked up the phone, hung it up again after some seconds.
"There's no answer at this time, sir. Would you care to leave a message?"
"I suppose I can't just go up and see if I can find her. Right," Rick said, knowing before he proposed it. Glancing at his watch, pondering his options, lightning struck. "Can you maybe try Jordan Shaw?"
With a few more clicks, the guard was on the phone again, that time to a successful end.
"Ma'am, I have a…" Rick gave his name again. "Richard Castle here to see you. Yes, ma'am. He's in the lobby now. Thank you, ma'am."
He hung up, reached for one of the many binders lined up before him. "I'm going to need to see an ID, sir. Please look here," he instructed after Rick handed over his license, pointing at a small camera mounted on the computer monitor. "You're going to be given a badge. You must wear it at all times when inside this building. You'll surrender it here when your business is done."
Just as Rick clipped the badge to the pocket of his shirt, the click of approaching heels across the marble floor drew his attention.
Jordan Shaw.
"The Barnes & Noble is three blocks over, Mr. Castle," she said humorously. "Thanks, Jimmy."
"Ma'am," the guard nodded.
"Bag on the belt, Castle. Protocol." Rick sent his duffle through the scanner, stepped through the metal detector, and retrieved it when it was cleared, then followed Jordan back to the bank of elevators.
"Thanks for coming down to get me. It's good to see you again, Agent Shaw. I wanted to surprise Kate."
Jordan slowly pivoted her head his way. "Here I thought the whole day was going to go by without a good laugh." She stepped inside first. Rick followed and the door closed. "So, this is what being wrong feels like," she remarked as the car climbed.
"Wrong?" he asked, but the elevator chimed their arrival, and he was left without an explanation.
At her floor, she walked them through a maze of desks and cubicles, steered them toward her office that filled the back corner. The pair earned a few curious looks along the way, none of them from Kate, Rick noted with disappointment, and just as they crossed the threshold, his phone buzzed in his pocket.
It was a text message from Kate, a reply to the one he sent from the backseat of the taxi.
"I miss your face, too," she wrote. "I'm buried at work right now but call me when you get in bed later. We can talk. And stuff."
He spun around so quickly, he almost fell over, his eyes surveilling the room, wondering where her desk was hidden among all the others.
"Kick back a few mini bottles on the plane, Castle?" Jordan ribbed, moving around behind her desk, and dropping into that delicious, burgundy leather throne of a chair. "I think it's best if you sit."
"Sorry, I'm just, yeah," he agreed when it was clear it wasn't a suggestion.
"I didn't think our paths would ever cross again. I was glad to hear you and Beckett finally got your shit together. Two more years it took, though? Seriously? I'm good, but I can't be the only one it was obvious to back then."
Rick still had his phone in his hand, open to Kate's titillating message, and upon realizing so tucked it away.
"She was worth the wait," he replied absent any pause, any need for thought.
"Pretty sappy for a mystery writer. You looking to jump genres?" Jordan leaned back, folded her arms across her chest, spoke on. "She is an impressive woman. She's here because I knew that, but she's still managed to surprise me. That isn't easy to do."
He thought he might burst sitting there for one more second. The few ounces of self-control he had stored up were all burned off.
"Not that I don't want to catch up, Agent Shaw, but I just really want to see her right now if that's okay. Is she, like, in the file room or questioning some dirtbag or…?"
"I guess it's going around." Seeing how anxious he was, Jordan couldn't help but feel for him as she broke the news. "Hold on to your hat for the plot twist, Castle. Beckett got on a plane today to New York, to surprise you. Talk about made for each other," she said and watched his shoulders deflate.
